Thursday, October 04, 2018

At Home

In the garden the trees and shrubs are taking on their autumnal hue.
 The Tulip Tree (Liriodendron)  has gone from bright green to yellow in one week.

 The Amelanchier has reached its final colouration for the year.  Snowy white flowers in Spring were replaced by bright ruby coloured berries in Summer and now its leaves have turned russet and are gently falling of the branches.  It is a favourite with all the small birds especially blue tits, sparrows and robins as they use it to perch in before they swoop to snatch buggy nibbles from the window feeder.  Only the robin takes the time to look through the window at us.
 The Hydrangea has travelled from bright blue to light blue to lilac to pink before reaching green again.

 The sedums which are so popular with butterflies have darkened.

 
A Red Admiral visited in the afternoon sunshine.

The Japanese Anemones are holding out as long as they can.

Meanwhile in the kitchen new recipes have been tried and tested

Chickpea Fritters delicious on a bed of Wild Rocket. Recipe by Jamie Oliver from the September Food Magazine from Waitrose.
Fox shaped biscuit with a little cutter I received as part of a birthday present near the end of August.  It was the first chance I had of using it.

The recipe used was from the BeRo book for gingerbread men. 
I've been reading the latest Stephen Booth 'Cooper and Fry' novel.  I love these books as they are set in around the Peak District and actually other parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire too. Many places I know and love have been used in these novels. This story is set around Hayfield and Kinder Scout with references to the Mass Trespass which took place there in 1932 and which finally led to the creation of the first National Park.

Most of my ancestors come from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with a few from Leicestershire and Lincolnshire.  Plus one from Fife in Scotland who moved to live in Loughborough, Leicestershire in the 1820s.




I've been sorting through some old family photographs.  Most are of family on my mother's side, some came to me from my mother's cousin who lived in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She was one of the little twin girls you can see in the bottom photo. The family left Nottinghamshire for Canada in 1913.
 The girls were called Violet and Olive.  Violet lived into this century and she is the one who sent me many photos. I met her twice when she came back to England for visits.  Unfortunately she lost her twin sister during an outbreak of diphtheria just a few years after they arrived in Canada.


The formidable lady above is my great great grandmother Martha who was born in the village of Welby near Grantham in Lincolnshire.  When she married she moved to Long Clawson near Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire.  


The lady above with the little girl is Martha's daughter and my grandmother Florence Mary who was born in Long Clawson, the little girl is my mother's older sister Gladys Emily.

Above my grandfather Alexander Joseph with my mother's brother William Edward.  Another sad tale of infant mortality I'm afraid.  Meningitis took him in 1911.

I can spend hours looking through old photos often wondering who some of the people are as many aren't labelled in any way.  

34 comments:

  1. Really frustrating inheriting old photos and not having a clue who they are.We bought a new bird table last week and while in the store(Charlie’s)I noticed a three pack of solid ,fat based I presume,bird mixes.One was a berry mix and the robin loves it.He has trouble getting on the feeders but on the bird table he can manage.I did spot a squirrel on there earlier but I think,at the moment,it is too heavy for them to take away!!!

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    1. My Mum's cousin had identified everyone she could on the photos and in letters and notes but some were unknowns and I have many others with people on I don't know. We saw a squirrel unhook a feeder with fat balls in it. It then ran off with one of the balls, it was quite a new one too so quite large:)

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  2. Autumn is starting to make an appearance down here too. I like the look of those foxy biscuits. My grandfather was involved in the Kinder Trespass, in fact pretty much any trouble that was going!

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    1. How wonderful, we have a lot to thank those trespassers for. The biscuits were very tasty:)

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  3. The beautiful autumnal hues are a delight. The fox biscuits made me smile, a lovely addition to afternoon tea. How wonderful to enjoy browsing through the old photos.

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    1. The ginger fox biscuits are much nicer with tea than coffee and delightfu with rhubarb fruit tea, I love looking through the old photos, I have a huge box full of them:)

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  4. The autumn colours are quite pretty!

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    1. Everything looks lovely at the moment:)

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  5. Lovely Autumn changing colors..... They never grow old.

    That recipe looks delicious.

    Oh the old photos. How wonderful that you have them, and value them.

    ✨ 🍁 🎃 🍁 ✨

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    1. I love the old photos but worry what will happen to them so I need to pass them on to other family members at some point - trouble is there aren't many of us left:)

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  6. Your garden looks lovely, its nice to watch the colours as they change through the season. The Fox biscuits look fab.
    Have a lovely weekend.
    Amanda xx

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    1. Thank you Amanda, the biscuits have been tasty. Hope you too have a lovely weekend:)

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  7. I love your gingerbread foxes Rosie - very cute! Your garden is still looking beautiful. The family photos are a treasure. Isn't it frustrating when people in them can't be identified? Hope you have a lovely weekend. Rain is forecast here on Saturday! x

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    1. Thank you Simone. I loved the foxes, will make some more in a few weeks. I love the old photos. Many of them are labelled but there are quite a few that aren't. I've been given them from a few different family members so sort of know which belong to which but individual names to faces is a problem. It did rain yesterday until mid afternoon then the sun came out:)

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  8. What a wonderful post Rosie. Your garden is so very beautiful. I love seeing the autumnal tints developing in gardens and elsewhere. Lovely to see a Red Admiral on your sedums - I rarely ever see butterflies on mine - they seem to prefer the michaelmas daisies!

    The fox biscuits are SO cute and look delicious as do the chickpea fritters :) I will check out the Stephen Booth books - I have loved so many of the authors I have found on your book lists :)

    Family photos always bring family trees to life. Sorting through stuff at my mum's I have found dozens and dozens of boxes of transparencies (slides) - which I suspect I will bring home and spend hours going through and last weekend I did finally find the photos I remember Dad having from his side of the family. Sadly, most of those are not labelled but I may recognise some of them I hope. Also found a gold locket in mum's jewellery with two mini portraits. If my brother doesn't want it I am hoping to bring that home.

    Have a lovely weekend.

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    1. Thank you, glad you enjoyed the post. It was lovely to see the Red Admiral as most of the butterly visitors this year have been white ones which seem to prefer the Verbena Bonarensis to the Sedum. The first Cooper and Fry novel is Back Dog if you want to try one and follow on with the others. There must be getting towards twenty of them now. Perhaps you can copy the photos in the locket if you can't keep it. I hope you are able to identify some of the photos and slides you found. It is hard sorting through belongings and lowers the spirits too. Take care:)

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  9. Some lovely colour in your garden at the moment :)
    I love the fox shaped biscuits - they look good. I'm really looking forward to reading that book... but waiting for the paperback, as usual!

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    1. The biscuits were delicious, especially with Twinings sweet rhubarb fruit tea. Wish I could read paperbacks but the print is too small for me now so I'm grateful to be able to reserve hard back and large print books at the library and also for my e-reader so I can enlarge the font:)

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  10. I always find it lovely to see the pinks of sedum and anemone against the autumnal russet hues in the garden ths time of year, your plants look very healthy.

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    1. It does seem that the pink flowers are the last ones to hold out against the comming of Autumn and they contrast well with the seasonal colours:)

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  11. The autumn colouring is gorgeous & I'm jealous that your sedum at least flowered. Mine didn't last year, but it has emerged again after winter, so will see what happens this time. I enjoyed hearing about your ancestors. Take care.

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    1. Thank you, the sedum took ages to turn pink this year but at least it did. Hope yours flowers well next year. Have a lovely weekend:)

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  12. How fantastic are the Fox biscuits, I love them! I also love family history, your photos are great, i've been doing family history through Ancestry for some time and have been getting copies of lots of old photos from my Dad and making sure as many as I can have names on them!

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    1. Thank you Pam, they were tasty too. It's a good idea to identify places and people on as many older photos as you can especially whilst people who can tell you are still around. I don't know how family historians will fare in years to come with all the digital photos, will they still be able to access them if technology changes?:)

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  13. Lovely. You may be interested in my posts.
    https://forestofnoreturn.blogspot.com

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    1. Thank you, I will pop over and visit later:)

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  14. Lovely to see all your family photos. It’s amazing how many people from the British isles travelled to Canada. While we were visiting we heard about lots of unwanted children that were adopted by Canadian families because their British families couldn’t afford to keep them. So sad. Your garden is still looking lovely. B x

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    1. Some members of the other side of Mum's family went to Canada too and also to Pennsylvania USA, I've been lucky to be in touch with both of them and had so much information from them, both gone now. The garden is very windswept this morning, pots blown over and leaves everywhere:)

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  15. Your garden looks lovely, I do enjoy this time of year and the colours it brings.
    Isn't it wonderful to have old photographs, I keep mine in a big box … and they are treasured.

    All the best Jan

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    1. Thank you, I have a box full too some came to me in smaller boxes or envelopes and I love looking at them all:)

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  16. The colours of your garden and beautiful, Rosie. I have Sedum Autumn Joy, which I planted in the spring and the colour is absolutely stunning. I’m looking forward to reading the latest Stephen Booth novel as soon as I can get my hands on a copy - I love this series, though I’m not as familiar with the Peak District as you. You have quite a collection of family photographs to treasure - each a moment in time captured by the click of a shutter.

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    1. Thank you Marie, I have a huge box full of photos large and small. I love the old sepia ones even though I'm not sure of the identity of some of the people in them, they tell us so much about what life was like, especially the less formal ones. I always look forward to the next Stephen Booth novel and thoroughly enjoyed the last one:)

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  17. Hello Rosie, I've just found your blog and am enjoying reading it. Like you, I'm from the Midlands. I live in Staffordshire, near Cannock Chase, and I went to University in Leicester. I've also enjoyed walking in Derbyshire. So, I cross over with you geographically a little bit! You love your garden, I can see, and your plants are impressive. Lovely colours, and the anecdote about the robin made me smile - they are bold little birds. :)

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    1. Hello Jacqui how lovely to hear from you. You live not too far from me, we occasionally walk on Cannock Chase but more often stop at Wolseley Bridge and walk there at the wildlife centre. We left Leicester when I was six years old but I do visit when I can, I did my studies for the Museum's Diploma at Leicester Uni:)

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